Camila Moraes lives and works between Colombia and Brazil. She keeps us up-to-date with news about film events that focus on European films and their directors in the South American continent.

13 March, 2009

French movie week in Argentina

French cinema lovers in Argentina are many – and they won’t have to wait long to get acquainted with what local distributors have prepared for them in 2009. “Les avant premières” is a special exhibition of French movies that include 12 titles to be launched in the country this year, organized between the 19th and the 25th of March in the theaters of Patio Bulrich, an upper-class shopping center in Buenos Aires.

The program includes “Entre les murs” (Laurent Cantet; 2008), the acclaimed Golden Palm in Cannes last year, “Rumba” (Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy; 2008), an independent dark comedy by well established theater actors Fiona Gordon and Domique Abel (on the photo), “Le silence de Lorna” (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne; 2008), which got the best screenplay also in Cannes last year, and other titles mostly from 2006 and 2007. Certainly, this is good news.

But the question is: why does it take so long for important European titles to come to South America and why can’t they normally occupy the theaters? Anyway, it seems movies distribution between South America will get better with a special agreement that’s just been signed in Mexico (read about it here).

“Les avant premières” is an initiative from different French sponsors, including the French Embassy in Argentina, TV5, UniFrance, Alliance Française, Citroën and the French movie magazine Inrockuptibles. The organization is by Argentina cultural production company Green Tara. Check the full program.